Moe’s Half Marathon
Running in her first half marathon, Stawell Amateur Athletic Club runner Lindy Muller paced herself well to score a narrow victory in last Saturdays Moe’s Half Marathon.
Held as a sealed handicap along the banks of Horsham’s Wimmera River, the course consisted of 3 laps of 7km each. Twenty-eight runners lined up for the start, with 15 tackling the full race distance, the rest completing either one or two laps, but not participating in the final placings. A good showing of local runners from the Horsham Running Club formed part of the field.
As all runners set off together, with handicaps applied after the race, nobody knew exactly how they were going. Steve Page lead the field away, and soon opened up a big margin over Ray Scott, Peter Steggall and John Kelly.
Mark Pumpa showed good early form, but by the second lap was starting to fade, as did Peter Steggall. Paul Atherton set a consistent pace and looked to be well in contention.
By the third lap, Page held a commanding lead, but he too began to fade in the closing stages of the race. Steggall dropped back behind Kelly and Pumpa, while Scott and Atherton still looked to be running strongly. Muller, normally a front marker, was some way behind, but maintaining a steady pace.
Page crossed the line first, well ahead of Scott, with Kelly, Pumpa, Steggall and Atherton heading the rest of the field. Muller was still some distance from home, and it looked like Paul Atherton would clinch first place on handicap. However, Muller kept her rhythm to the line, to relegate Atherton to second place by just 8 seconds, with Ray Scott taking out third.
Steve Page clocked the fastest race time of 1 hour 18 minutes 7sec.
The juniors completed a 4km out and back course, resulting in a very exciting finish with only 10 seconds separating the first 3 runners.
Emma Kelly lead all the way until the last few hundred metres, when Shaun Parnaby managed to overtake her to snatch victory.
Kelly hung on to second from a fast finishing Emily Parnaby, who came home third with the fastest race time of 18 minutes 58sec.
Eight sub-juniors completed a 2km course. Tobias Blair ran strongly to take first place from an ever consistent Liam Burns. Elly Barnett stormed home for third, recording the fastest sub-junior girls time of 8 minutes 25sec.
Liam Scott ran the fastest sub-junior boys time of 7 minutes 40sec.